It’s property tax time in the greater Vancouver area and I received my property tax notice in the mail this week. My property taxes went up by 6.4% this year. As a comparison, my property assessment went up by just 4.2%. Now I know the assessment value cannot be completely correlated to the value of the property tax but there is a definite connection.
When I saw the tax notice, I immediately wanted to pass along this increase to my tenants but then I quickly realized I’m my own tenant. It’s unfortunate that my salary didn’t go up 6.4% this year. In fact, I’m not even working right now. Thankfully, I’ll be able to pay the tax this week without any difficulty at all.
With all these taxes I pay I figure I should get more out of the city I live in. To that end, I’ve looked into things like that. For example, I wanted to ride along with my local police department, which is not the RCMP. Sadly, the local police here don’t offer such a program. It’s very disappointing since I’ve been watching COPS since I was a kid and I think I’d do great in a ride along scenario.